“Journeyman,” Ep. 12: The dangers of pre-coitus interruptus

Early on we talked about the shortcomings of most Time Travel movies and TV series. Instead of exploring the potential paradoxes triggered by traveling through time, too often they’ve relied on romantic entanglements a la Kate and Leopold. Or the roller coaster thrills of this quickly forgotten film.

Not to sound like a fanboy, but ep. 12 of “J’man” shows the writers truly getting a hold on some of the possibilities inherent in the genre. Unfortunately, they’ll probably never get the opportunity to explore (and explain) things fully as NBC has all but canceled the program.

Tonight’s was the first of two final episodes filmed and creator Kevin Falls has promised they’ll provide some — but certainly not all — answers to what’s been happening to Dan Vasser.

“Dude, where’s my inspiration?”

The ep., titled “The Hanged Man,” might well have been called “The Butterfly Effect,” a term used as shorthand for the technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. In time travel terms, it describes the ripple effect a seemingly minor event in the past can have on the future.

In Ray Bradbury’s 1952 short story, a time traveler to the age of dinosaurs steps on a butterfly, inadvertently affecting the future in ways large and small. For example, spellings of common English words are now different, and a dictatorial president is elected to the White House.

The show made two implicit references to this term in the butterfly artwork both of Dan’s kids presented to him in this ep. Didn’t know Dan had two kids. Read on…

He said “paradox”, not… oh forget about it.

In this ep., Dan causes a similar Butterfly effect, simultaneously destroying Microsoft’s high-tech hegemony and, of more importance to him, causing his and Katie’s young son Zach to instead be a little girl names Caroline. So to bring Bill Gates back to power, he must also wipe away the cute little blond girl’s very existence.

The story

While traveling to the past, Dan leaves behind a digital camera that makes its way to a small computer startup. It’s as if he left a Maserati in Henry Ford’s garage and so, back in the present, technology has taken a quantum leap forward. The changes are profound. Think video paper and hologram computers.

But Zack is now Caroline, a fact Katie has no qualms with and she explicitly tells Dan not to do anything to their family. Will he? Won’t he?

In the meantime, we have another annoying family member visit. This time it’s Katie’s sister. Like Dan’s mom who, in the previous episode, admitted to still carrying a grudge because Kate hurt Annoying Brother Jack, Big Sis isn’t too keen on ABJ for what he put Kate through back when they were an item.

What we liked about this episode

The touching scenes between Dan and Caroline, the daughter he never knew. Still, Zach’s his boy, so it’ll be adios sweet Caroline.

The prickly scene between Big Sis and Annoying Brother Jack. Why she’s the first person he decides to tell that Theresa’s pregnant we’ll never know. Before the next commercial break, she tells Kate and Kate, being a good and obedient wife, tells Dan.

When Dan finally listened to our shout-at-the-TV suggestion and destroyed the camera. Why he waited to throw it in the dumpster we’ll never know. We would have stomped it with our foot right in front of Scary if Incapable Security Chief.

The final scene, when Elliott Langely doesn’t recognize Dan. You’ve got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do, J’man writers. And only one ep. left to do it in.

What we didn’t like about this episode

The too-too pat ending. How convenient that Dan and Livia both leap back to their respective time periods at just the right moment? And that the two security goons accidentally shoot and kill Scary-if-Incapable Security Chief after they do? Counting the death of father Phil from the Sopranos a few eps back, the series has now used its full allotment of convenient character deaths.